


worse things

by elisu



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Childhood Friends, Coming of Age, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Murder, Non-Linear Narrative, Small Towns, Suburbia, Zhong Chen Le-centric, what if jeno killed someone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:09:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26042470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elisu/pseuds/elisu
Summary: And Chenle thinks that maybe it would be nice, if they really could stay like this forever. Just the two of them, the setting sun, and suburbia that stretches on for as far as it possibly could as seen from their spot on the hill. Four hundred lux and home-brand chocolate cake. And Jeno.
Relationships: Lee Jeno/Zhong Chen Le
Comments: 34
Kudos: 76





	worse things

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much to yoon for reading over this! your brain is very sizeable and i am most grateful for it <3

Chenle doesn’t like to think ahead unless he has to. And he never does— not until Jeno’s seventeenth birthday, when a group of their classmates gathers at the park with leftover candles and supermarket cake. It happens not during the party, but rather when everyone’s gone back home and it’s just the two of them left to scrape the chocolate icing off the box with their plastic spoons. 

  
  


They’re still sitting at the old picnic table at the top of the hill, under the tree that looks like broccoli. Golden hour drags both their shadows out from underneath them and paints the rest of the now-empty park in pinkish hues of nostalgia. Jeno had his birthday here last year too, and the one before that, as well as every other year he can remember. And all the while, Chenle has been there with him. He laughs a little nervously when Jeno brings it up, without a doubt crossing his fingers under the table and praying silently that Jeno won’t mention that he remembers their voices cracking for the first time too. If nothing else, Chenle has his dignity in the very least. 

  
  


“How many more birthdays?” Jeno asks instead, a far-off look in his eyes, and Chenle’s not quite sure he knows how to answer. Chenle takes things one year at a time,  _ yolos _ it, if you may. That’s not to say that he’s reckless, of course. They’re far from it, both of them are, but even so they are two sides of the same coin. Childish mischief and good, folded neatly into a cocoa cream batter and slid into an oven preheated to two-hundred degrees— you know what he means. If not, Jeno always does, and for now that’s enough. 

“All of them.” There’s a million ways out of here, and a million ways back, but even that is too far ahead to think about for now. For now Chenle can make promises, because he knows he’s been able to keep them before. 

“You sure?”  _ Not really _ , Chenle wants to tell him.  _ How could anyone be sure?  _ They’re seventeen and they know nothing and too much at the same time. Their town is small but oh, the world is so, so big. 

Surely Jeno knows this too. Jeno knows everything. 

“Of course I’m sure.”  _ Of course he’ll try to be _ . “I’d come here and buy you a Coles mud cake even if I was sixty years old and able to afford to afford a much better one.”

They both chuckle at this, and Chenle thinks that maybe it would be nice, if they really could stay like this forever. Just the two of them, the setting sun, and suburbia that stretches on for as far as it possibly could as seen from their spot on the hill. Four hundred lux and home-brand chocolate cake. And Jeno. 

“Even if you went broke and couldn’t afford one?”

“You know how easy it is to steal from the small Coles.” Their town is both small and big enough to only have two Coles supermarkets around. There was a family-owned grocery store too, for ages, but eventually the children moved away and the stuff was just cheaper at the chain store and the shop went out of business. Chenle wonders if everything else here will die out in the same way. 

“Even as a sixty-year-old man?”

“ _ Especially _ as a sixty-year-old man.” They laugh again, and it’s nice. It really is. 

“What if I killed someone?” Jeno asks, a tinge of childish curiosity dusting his words, “Hypothetically,” he then adds, as if the clarification was necessary.

Chenle rolls his eyes. “Because  _ that’s _ going to happen,” he drawls, scraping at the plastic lid with the edge of his spoon even though there’s no icing left on it. 

Still, Jeno waits for his answer. Cocks his head to the side in question like he’s some kind of puppy dog and widens his eyes too. 

Chenle turns to face him straight-on. “Wait… you’re being serious? You’re actually asking…” 

It’s Jeno who laughs this time, shoulders coming up to his neck and his eyes folding charmingly into moons. Chenle had always thought, secretly, that Jeno looked like the night sky and everything beautiful about it when he smiled. 

“Not really, just wanted to see what you would say.” 

“I would.”

“What?” Chenle’s response surprises Jeno as much as it does himself, as it seems. But the words have left his mouth and there’s nothing else he can do but…  _ yolo it _ . (God, he hates that word. Jisung from his Physics class uses it all the time). “Even if I killed someone?”

“Was there a sudden change in topic that I was unaware of?” He knows there wasn’t, knows what he’s said. “Yeah. I’d be here. Even if… even if you killed someone.”

Jeno jabs him in the ribs playfully. “Why so serious, Le? You know I was only joking.”

  
  


Because it’s as absurd an idea to them as it is to anyone else, and applying it to Jeno Lee would be a joke if not unimaginable. 

  
  


The sun’s really starting to set now, and instead of a rosy gold the sky has turned a cold shade of purple. “Let’s get going, shall we?” Jeno says, taking the lid out of Chenle’s hands and shoving it neatly into the plastic bag with all the other bits and bobs from the party earlier. It’s his own birthday, but he’s somehow ended up the one shouldering all the responsibility. Chenle’s pondered about this a couple of times before, about whether Jeno gets tired of being the good one all the time. He’s even vocalised them on a few occasions, to which Jeno would always insist that no, it’s just the way he is. Just the way he enjoys cleaning up and taking care of people and doing all the other things that all the neighbourhood mums love him for doing. 

“Thanks for another good birthday, Le.”

“Why, I should be the one thanking you.” 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“I’m sorry,” is what Jeno says, as he’s sitting soaked on the half-dead lawn, hose still on and running a slow stream behind him. Knees hugged close to his chest by numb arms. A scared child.

  
  


The smell of bleach and something else that Chenle recognises only from his old part-time job working at the butcher’s store hangs thick in the air, and it takes him all of a minute to register in his mind what’s happened. 

  
  


“I’m sorry too,” is what Chenle replies, a few moments afterwards. He’ll mean it, sooner or later. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Term four of their third year of secondary school. One of the less important days. When the news breaks that Mr Kim-- the junior humanities teacher, has overdosed in his car, Jeno and Chenle get high off the idea that death is very much a real thing and everything will go away soon enough and nothing actually matters anymore and—

  
  


And so they skip class to go to the beach. 

  
  


This is back when sneaking out of school is the worst thing the both of them would ever do. When catharsis is just a bus away, and the waves and sand and your best friend’s hand are all you need to be at peace again. 

  
  


“Do you think he looked like the people in movies do?” Chenle whispers to Jeno, as if they aren’t the only people at the seaside on a day as dull as this one. As if the tired gulls and the odd washed up crab take any interest in the schoolboy gossip that floats around like driftwood. As if Jeno would know.  _ Back when all things bad only exist on screens and in stories.  _

“People overdose in real life too, Le. What do you think the movies are based off of?”  _ Back when Jeno has critical thinking skills. _

“That’s not answering my question, Jen,” Chenle pushes, stubborn.  _ Back when curiosity isn’t a dangerous thing. _

  
  


Jeno gathers his brow and frowns at the placidly rolling waves that lick at the berm in slow, weak washes. The sky hasn’t made its appearance at all that day, so the only thing that can be seen overhead is pale grey for miles. 

  
  


“I don’t know,” he says, finally. “I’ve never even seen it in movies.”

“Really? I thought you said you watched Pulp Fiction last year.”

“Hey, hey, hey…” Jeno says, fake-threateningly as a smile returns to his eyes. Chenle fakes oblivion. “You’re trying to make me bring up my stupid crush on Ryujin last year. I’m not going to.” 

Chenle dissolves into giggles. “You just did!”

“Shut up!”

  
  


Ryujin Shin, the pretentious film kid. Chenle is not sure if every town has one, but this one does— she’d been the subject of Jeno’s pining for the whole of year eight before getting a scholarship into a prestigious arts school in the city. 

  
  


“You don’t still like her, do you?” 

“I was stalking her Instagram highlights the other day, bro… I think she has a girlfriend now.”

Chenle clutches at his chest theatrically, pretending to swoon. “The pain… the heartbreak… the- mmf!” Jeno takes Chenle’s cheeks between his hands and squeezes at them, and Chenle grumbles indignantly, his mouth smooshed shut. 

  
  


“Hey!” A man’s voice yells from across the beach, slightly distorted by the sound of the sea breeze, but loud and clear all the same. “Aren’t you two kids supposed to be in school?”

  
  


Chenle and Jeno’s eyes both widen, before they take one look at each other, get back on their feet, and run for their lives. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“They’ll see it washed up if we throw the body into the sea.”

“No shit Jen, that’s why we’re burying him.”

  
  


A hole in the ground, no questions asked. 

  
  


And Chenle’s head hasn’t stopped pulsing. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


He lied. Skipping class isn’t the worst thing the two of them have ever done. 

  
  


The stream behind the forest. What ensues. 

  
  
  


It happens after school, as most things do. The two of them toss their school bags under some tree and roll their uniform trousers to their knees. Their socks balled up neatly sit snug in their leather shoes, which they line up next to the bank. It’s two days from Chenle’s birthday, and he’s never wanted to disappear more than he does now. 

  
  


Jeno isn’t one for wading when it’s not at the beach or the swimming pool, but he’ll do it if Chenle asks him to. If Chenle’s there with him. Something slimy swishes past both of their bare ankles, and they both yell at the sensation. 

  
  


Somewhere between the sounds of rustling trees and running water, the sounds of two schoolboys not yet grown out of this small town life fit like a glove. Somewhere between the bank and the other side, Chenle slips on a pebble and falls a little, sideways, before Jeno extends an arm to stabilise him. Chenle doesn’t know why he does what he does. Doesn’t know why Jeno does, either. 

  
  


A kiss in the middle of the stream. That’s the worst thing they’ve ever done. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


They’ve covered the hole with leaves and lugged the shovel in the water, and Chenle barely manages to get out, “Why’d you do it?”

  
  


Not that he doesn’t know. 

  
  


Jeno stares at the middle of the stream with empty eyes and an equally blank face. Shrugs. “Don’t know.” He’s lying— both of them know this much, but Chenle doesn’t press him any further. Just sits in silence next to him on the bank. Two schoolboys. Legs hanging off the edge where water meets forest. Chenle still wants to disappear. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


There’s only so much a person with too much good in them can take. 

  
  


There’s only so much prodding a bear can handle before it bares its claws and wakes from its slumber and goes absolutely batshit insane. Jeno isn’t a bear, though. Chenle knows that Jeno could lose any sense of sanity he has in him and still look as fine as the next person. Could kick at a brick wall until his feet split open and come to school smiling the next day. (Their school uniform socks come up mid-calf, anyway.)

  
  


Chenle finds out what happened from whispers in the schoolyard. What the teacher did. The unforgivable thing. He runs to the locker bay to find Jeno, to find his locker empty. 

  
  


He already knows. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Chenle has kept promises before, and so he makes new ones. 

  
  


Chenle has broken promises before, and so he breaks new ones. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“I’m sorry,” Chenle says, feeling his heart come up in his throat like it hasn’t already shrivelled up and faded away for a while now. “For not… doing something. I don’t know. I could’ve done something.”

  
  


Silence. Then-

  
  


“Nah.”

“Yeah?”

  
  


“Yeah.” Jeno’s picking at the skin on his fingers like the smell of death won’t haunt him for the rest of his days. “Leave, Chenle. You don’t need this.”

  
  


“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” 

  
  
  


“I’m sorry.” Chenle’s not sure who says this. Could be either of them. 

  
  
  


Then, slowly, he gets back up on his feet, takes one last look at the stream, and runs for his life. 

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. did you notice the folklore references i shoved in here? yeah. Yeah <3  
> 2\. please do not murder your teachers  
> 3\. [gestures towards the comment section in an interpretive dance] let me know what you think? (if you want). or yell at me on twitter @dreamscng (if you want)  
> 4\. thank you for reading if you did? i am not sure why you would be reading /this/ rn if you did not.. but yes thank you :)


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